PM Turnbull has a fair bit on his plate just now. Picture: APSource:News Corp Australia

IT WILL be the long goodbye — one of the longest ever — if Federal Parliament can find time for it before rushing to an election.

There are 19 members of the House of Representatives retiring at the coming poll and they all want to deliver formal farewells.

It’s one of the more civil occasions of Parliament in which MPs say nice things about rivals and accept compliments about themselves as they wave goodbye, sometimes after decades of service.

However, the parliamentary agenda could be crammed with other matters, such as an early Budget and an early election, leaving no room for the valedictories.

Speaker Tony Smith and the Labor and Coalition Whips are looking at the problem, news.com.au has been told, and the solution so far is not obvious.

It’s not even obvious what will happen in Parliament this week.

Senators are preparing for sitting on Saturday as members of the crossbench try to fend off legislation reforming the voting system which helped get them elected on tiny support.

Motoring Enthusiasts’ Party’s Ricky Muir wants the Government to consider legislation reviving the Australian Building and Construction Commission — an industry watchdog which Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said must be passed or become the trigger for a double-dissolution election.

Liberal Democrat David Leyonjhelm wants a vote on the Greens’ same-sex marriage legislation, again in a bid to frustrate passage of the Senate voting reform bill.

The Government, meanwhile, is considering bringing forward the Budget from May 10 to May 3, and pulling on an early election, perhaps in July. An August day is also being considered, which would put the election roughly on schedule.

Meanwhile, 12 per cent of the House of Representatives is ready to go but unable to leave.

The farewells are not an issue which will grip the nation but present an example of how uncertainty in the parliamentary sitting calendar can upset planning — from the date for the Midwinter Ball which raises some $300,000 for charity, to major announcements by the public service, to spending timing by business.

And it is important to MPs who, for example, would want to salute Liberal Philip Ruddock (42 years in Parliament); National Bruce Scott (26 years), and Labor’s Kelvin Thomson (20 years).

Those who have announced they will not stand again at the next election are: